Daylight Saving Time is Super Unpopular. Here Are the Countries Trying To Ditch It. (washingtonpost.com) 355
Daylight Saving Time ended in the United States on Sunday, bumping the clocks back an hour. The change happened in Europe a week earlier, meaning the time difference between the continents was momentarily smaller. It's another confusing wrinkle in a confusing temporal process that confounds the world. From a story: Today, 70 countries change their clocks midyear for Daylight Saving Time, including most of North America, Europe and parts of South America and New Zealand. China, Japan, India and most countries near the equator don't fall back or jump ahead. In much of Asia and South America, the Daylight Saving Time shift was adopted, but then abandoned. It has never been observed in most of Africa. While the United States extended its Daylight Saving Time in 2005 and Florida wants to make it its standard time, other countries are moving to ditch the practice.
The European Union is weighing a plan to abandon shifting from daylight saving time midyear. "Millions ... believe that summertime should be all the time," the European Union's chief executive, Jean-Claude Juncker, told German reporters in August. Juncker was referring, in part, to an online poll conducted by the E.U., which found that changing clocks is tremendously unpopular. (As my colleague Rick Noack pointed out, however, there are methodological problems: "The largest share of participants came from one country -- Germany -- where the time switch has been a somewhat odd front-page topic for years. But any E.U. decision would also impact the 27 other member states.")
The European Union is weighing a plan to abandon shifting from daylight saving time midyear. "Millions ... believe that summertime should be all the time," the European Union's chief executive, Jean-Claude Juncker, told German reporters in August. Juncker was referring, in part, to an online poll conducted by the E.U., which found that changing clocks is tremendously unpopular. (As my colleague Rick Noack pointed out, however, there are methodological problems: "The largest share of participants came from one country -- Germany -- where the time switch has been a somewhat odd front-page topic for years. But any E.U. decision would also impact the 27 other member states.")
End it (Score:4, Insightful)
I can't believe I've had to endure forced jet lag twice a year my whole life, for no reason that anyone can coherently articulate.
It would be nice if we can end it while I can still enjoy it, lol
Re:End it (Score:5, Funny)
At least a few of those 23 are going to be children.
Please, think of the children.
Re: End it (Score:2, Insightful)
Re: End it (Score:2, Insightful)
No! No nation should have a choice in this. It is stupid from any possible way to look at it. Just end it and let it die in the history books as one of humanity's most asinine, clueless attempts to changing our world around us. We are finally I the correct time. If the uneducated morons in FL want to keep the day shifted an hour then just simply start shit an hour later. Open stores at 9 instead of 8. Done. Dont be a bunch of dumbfuck nitwits and change your time because well you are dumb.
Re: End it (Score:2)
You will convince more people to come change their clocks than businesses to adjust their hours of operations.
Less hassle too. Since everyone moves the same time. Businesses don't have to change.
Please think of the profits.
Lastly if you don't know the value of DST then I suggest turning the TV off for a year. You might be surprised at what this thing g called outside is like at various points through out the year.
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But there is: the sun. Originally, noon was the point where the sun was at its highest. Of course that meant each town had a slightly different time, so with long distance communication and travel (telegraph and train), time became standardised in time zones.
Ideally, every country would be in the timezone closest to its natural time. In practice, of course many don't. Most of western Europe actually follows central European time, because Germany. But if they now decide to standardise on summer time rather t
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Well, if we're gong to abandon the sun's role in this, I suggest getting rid of timezones altogether. Everybody just follow UTC. That's going to fix a lot of headaches.
(And yes, I said "most of western Europe. Not the UK, Ireland or Portugal, but France, Netherland, Belgium and Spain follow central European time despite being geographically mostly or entirely in the western European timezone.
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Is there an EU mandate for daylight savings time? I didn't know.
It makes sense to coordinate internationally when the switch should happen, but I expected that whether to switch to DST at all was a national decision. Just like the timezone you're in.
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There is. There was a legislation n Poland that tried to end time saving time, and someone pointed out that EU requires all countries to be consistent. So it has to be all-or-nothing from what I know.
There's nothing stopping them from recommending or requiring that businesses shift their operating hours forwards and back in the opposite direction of daylight savings time. It's a little convoluted but the EU can't do diddly about it.
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People still change clocks? How...peculiar. The computers and phones take care of themselves, and those are the only clocks I use these days....
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People still change clocks? How...peculiar. The computers and phones take care of themselves, and those are the only clocks I use these days....
My computers, my phone, and my bedside clock all change automatically... however... the living room clock, the microwave clock, the oven clock, the clocks in the cars, the office clock, my watches... none of them change automatically. However, I've learnt it's easier to just remember those clocks are an hour fast for four months than it is to go around and change them.
Re:End it (Score:5, Insightful)
"Cars often still need their clocks changed manually. "
Naw. Cars, just like ovens and microwaves show the wrong time for half a year, because nobody can remember how to change them and the manual is long gone.
Re:End it (Score:5, Funny)
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Even my '12 Dodge doesn't need to do that. If Dodge can do it, so can you.
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Re:End it (Score:4, Insightful)
Thinning the herd isn't a negative side effect, it's natural selection.
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Re: End it (Score:2)
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Sticking to permanent summer time is something I would vote for Adolph Hitler if he were in a position to grant me it. I would even vote for Donald Trump if he were to implement it. I have spent my entire working life hating the sudden plunge into darkness in the evening that the autumn switch causes.
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That switch would come just a bit later if it weren't for DST. We typically get over 15 hours od light during the Summer Solstice, and dropping all the way down to ~9.25 hrs for Winter Solstice. Maybe you need a safe space?
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https://www.livescience.com/50... [livescience.com]
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You get jet lag when you cross to a different continent on the other side of the world. Not a single hour. Jeez, Grandpa.
Yeah, who cares about science [livescience.com] when you can have snark?
The problem with the E.U. (Score:4, Insightful)
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Two points:
1. The online survey was open to everyone. Most participants came from Germany. (BTW I took part and I'm not German or living in Germany.)
2. The EU will de-regulate DST. If an EU country wants to keep DST they'll be free to do so.
I'd be happy to hear what's the problem with the EU regarding this.
Re:The problem with the E.U. (Score:4, Informative)
"The largest share of participants came from one country -- Germany -- where the time switch has been a somewhat odd front-page topic for years. But any E.U. decision would also impact the 27 other member states.")
So what if a majority comes from the largest country? Looking at the results by country reveals that abolishing the switch is the more popular choice in all but two countries: Greece and Cyprus. In the rest of the EU, the preference was to ditch the switch, mostly by overwheling majorities, up to 95%.
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Once they settle on the exact timezones, the choice may not be so popular. Spain, for instance, is already outside it's natural time zone. If Germany decides to shift one hour to the east, then Spain has the choice of going along, which would skew their daylight hours even more, or decide to switch to another timezone, which would reduce overlap in office hours, potentially hurting their trade.
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Credit where credit is due: This wasn't Germany's idea, but Finland's.
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The terms of the Greek bailout worked pretty well.
DST all year round for the win (Score:5, Insightful)
It seems screamingly obvious to me that most people would prefer a little extra daylight after work. That has the most utility to the most people. Make DST year round and be done with it. There is no reason that noon has to be the time of day when the sun is highest overhead. That's just tradition for the sake of useless tradition.
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With that kind of reasoning, why not move the clock ahead by 2 or 3 hours ?
Re:DST all year round for the win (Score:5, Insightful)
Why change the clock? Why not just change business hours if it's going to be year round?
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It's easier to change the clock to determine everybody to adapt the new time than to make everybody change their schedule. Don't believe me, try to change your business schedule, then think about the effort to do that for all the business all sync at the same time... guess what they easiest and sane solution is to change the official hour.
Good luck with that (Score:5, Insightful)
Why change the clock? Why not just change business hours if it's going to be year round?
Which do you think is easier? Mandating a clock change for everyone or convincing every business to simultaneously change their operating hours?
I suggest the former is the only practical solution.
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The clock and what defines "noon" is a made up construct that we then used to define a LOT of things. It's actually far easier to change the clock than it is to try to change all the stuff that's dependent on the clock.
The biggest problem with trying to change business hours is that there will always be a group of people that refuse to participate and they blow up the whole change for everyone else.
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" It's actually far easier to change the clock than it is to try to change all the stuff that's dependent on the clock."
No, it really isn't. Changing timetables or working hours or meetings times is done all the time. And whats the point of having clocks if they don't tell the actual (within reason) time? You might just as well have 10 hours labelled A -J with say G as noon. Makes as much sense as not having the clock saying noon at noon.
Re:DST all year round for the win (Score:4, Interesting)
No, it really isn't. Changing timetables or working hours or meetings times is done all the time.
Many stores in my town have business hours printed on a piece of paper behind their window. It's much easier to change the clock, than it is to reprint all the signs. Also, various kinds of public transport still have paper timetables. Even if everything is electronic, changing the times would require an atomic update on the entire database, rather than an update on the global time offset.
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The problem is that those business hours are wrong for the current time zone. Don't cripple that by changing the time zone.
They don't look wrong to me. How do you define 'correct' business hours ?
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A lot of businesses have to cover core hours that their customers demand, so can't easily change their working hours. They need people to be there to answer the phone 9-5. Switching to permanent DST would help the most people enjoy evening daylight.
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I would think it's a lot easier to decree that the time has changed than to get thousands of businesses to all agree to change their hours. Just getting the TV networks to shift everything by an hour sounds difficult, though they're less and less relevant all the time.
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Strictly speaking, our current work hours are tradition for the sake of useless tradition. If we all started work an hour earlier (and left that same hour earlier), the net effect would be the same. Who cares whether or not you sleep at 10 pm vs 11 pm? Or get up a 5 am vs 6 am?
Some traditions are easier to change (Score:3)
Strictly speaking, our current work hours are tradition for the sake of useless tradition.
Quite true but getting that to change will be nigh impossible in any sort of organized fashion. Much easier to just change the clock for everyone. Defining noon as the time of day when the sun is highest overhead is an equally arbitrary and useless tradition but FAR easier to change.
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...Who cares whether or not you sleep at 10 pm vs 11 pm? Or get up a 5 am vs 6 am?
If you live in a mid-northern latitude, such as around 50-60, DST is a nightmare in the summer because it doesn't get dark until close to midnight. Anyone living with small children will quickly discover they won't want to go to bed if the sun is out. I would definitely prefer to stay on Winter time the whole year so we can get some sleep in the Summer, or have time zones defined by both longitude and latitude.
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Anyone living with small children quickly discovered that the amount of light outside has nothing to do with them putting up a fuss about going to bed.
Biological clocks (Score:2)
Set the time for the lives we actually lead (Score:2)
It's not tradition for the sake of tradition, it's a clumsy attempt to get our mechanical clocks to align more closely with our biological clocks.
At this point in time it very much is tradition for the sake of tradition. Since most people's daily activities have shifted towards later in the day it makes sense to change our time keeping to match that with the greatest utility.
Without any clocks, people naturally synchronize their activity to the sun, waking earlier in the summer and sleeping earlier (and longer) in the winter.
So what? We have clocks and are always going to have clocks so how about we set the time of day to have the most utility for the lives we actually lead?
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Since most people's daily activities have shifted towards later in the day ...
Um, evidence of that? Clearly younger people tend to sleep in, and shift to nightlife, but that changes for the majority over 30. With less melatonin, many older adults feel sleepy in the early evening and wake up in the early morning
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If you want a bit more sun after work, you should just go to work a bit earlier.
Making DST the standard time would mean that much of western Europe would end up using Eastern European Time. Currently France, Spain and the Benelux are using Central European Time, which is one hour off for them, but it's practical because of Germany. But if Germany does the crazy thing and actually moves to Eastern European Time, I think I'd prefer if we just stuck to Western European Time again. With the UK and Portugal, I g
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If you want a bit more sun after work, you should just go to work a bit earlier.
Making DST the standard time would mean that much of western Europe would end up using Eastern European Time. Currently France, Spain and the Benelux are using Central European Time, which is one hour off for them, but it's practical because of Germany. But if Germany does the crazy thing and actually moves to Eastern European Time, I think I'd prefer if we just stuck to Western European Time again. With the UK and Portugal, I guess. But using St Petersburg time in Paris is just stupid.
I suspect people's opinions on this may differ depending on where they are at within a given time zone. There is a huge difference between US Central time in Alabama and US Central time in West Texas. [wordpress.com] And there are plenty of examples of US states that really should be in the neighboring time zones, but aren't because reasons.
And even at the same longitude within a timezone, different latitudes may have very different opinions. At higher lattitudes, sunrise can be extremely early- 4:30AM in some US loca
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It's usually not done for evenings, but in the mornings so kids walking to school are safer. However, perhaps the school hours should change per season instead of all the clocks.
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This would be a win. Otherwise I'll just fight to keep DST and deal with a miniscule inconvenience twice a year.
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I bet most people would prefer to wake up with the sun more days rather than the extra sun after work.
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Not if you measure utility in terms of health. For a period of about 10 weeks from the end of November until early February, sunrise north of about the 45th parallel (which for reference represents about 50 million Americans or so) doesn't happen until after 7:30AM, and actually as late as about 8:15AM. If daylight savings were implemented year 'round, then sun
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However there have been studies looking at the health impact of changing clocks and changing clocks has a big negative impact.
DST would be the preferred time to keep and there is no reason to make that the standard. FYI days start getting longer in January.
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It seems screamingly obvious to me that most people would prefer a little extra daylight after work.
Try visiting Arizona in September and attend an outdoor event at 7PM, like a local football game. Then imagine it one hour EARLIER in the day when it's even hotter.
Then you'll understand why having extra daylight isn't always "screamingly obvious" to everyone around our geographically diverse country.
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It seems screamingly obvious to me that most people would prefer a little extra daylight after work. That has the most utility to the most people. Make DST year round and be done with it. There is no reason that noon has to be the time of day when the sun is highest overhead. That's just tradition for the sake of useless tradition.
Yeah, why can't we all put aside our differences and agree with me?? :)
I might like a little more daylight after work. I also might like little more daylight when my kids walk to the bus stop in the morning. Turns out that different people have different priorities and different preferences.
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There is no reason that noon has to be the time of day when the sun is highest overhead
I think it would be super cool if the sun were highest overhead at noon, but thanks to daylight savings time, the sun's highest point seems to be about 1:30 PM most of the year where I live.
Arbitrary definitions (Score:2)
It's noon when the sun crosses the local meridian. Solar noon is the only thing that matters or makes any sense for time keeping.
That is an arbitrary definition of noon. You could just as validly define 1pm or 3pm to be the time when the sun is at the highest point in the sky. Saying it has to be exactly at noon is just pointless tradition. The definition of the fundamental unit of time (the second) has zero relationship to the location of the sun in the sky. 1 second is defined to be exactly 9,192,631,770 cycles of a caesium atomic clock.
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He wrote solar noon. It's the exact and only definition of that.
Noon has no relationship to the number 12 (Score:2)
He wrote solar noon. It's the exact and only definition of that.
Solar noon has ZERO relationship to the number 12 on our clocks. We can define noon to correspond to whatever number on our clock we want it to be. For part of the year we move it to be a different number than 12 because it's practical to do so.
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Solar noon has ZERO relationship to the number 12 on our clocks.
Zero relationship, except for the fact that for most people on earth, they are reasonably close together.
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Solar noon is all that matters? So it's a different time 20 miles west of me? That doesn't sound the least bit chaotic and useless? I set my DVR to record, but it's 13 minutes later over at the broadcast tower...
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Re: DST all year round for the win (Score:2)
Millennials didn't kill wristwatches. They just collectively became adults at the same point in time when everybody started using their phones as de-facto pocket watches.
I'm GenX. I wore a watch religiously until my watch battery died sometime around 2002 & never got replaced because it was too much of a hassle (special tool required) & I had my phone with me all the time anyway. I'm far from unique in this regard. Statistically, almost EVERYONE drifted into phone-as-watch-replacement at some point
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As opposed to 8:30? Who cares? Either way, you are waking up in the dark (grumpy old retired people who can get up whenever they want aside).
Dangerous Time (Score:5, Insightful)
Statistically, two of the most dangerous times of year come the week after each of the time changes as people's body-clocks don't match up with the time of day. There are an increase in accidents and deaths during this time.
I understand that there are concerns for children standing in the dark waiting for buses. Perhaps we need to make daylight savings time the standard time year round (or just make schools start an hour later and the suggested work day start an hour later).
Let's stop the charade and just set time to a static time year round.
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I understand that there are concerns for children standing in the dark waiting for buses. Perhaps we need to make daylight savings time the standard time year round (or just make schools start an hour later and the suggested work day start an hour later).
You've got it the wrong way around. DST in winter would mean the sun would come up around 9:30. If you want school to start later, stick to winter time i.o. DST.
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The problem is parents don't want to arrange for child care before AND after school. So school has to start early so kids can be sent there before the work day begins. Therefore you can't make school later. By the way a lot of city dwellers dismiss the whole bus stop danger thing but out in country its a very problem. Several children in my area have been injured this year already by vehicles while waiting out the bus stop.
The problem is in unlit places drivers tend to hug the outside white line on the r
Please (Score:2, Insightful)
Let's just all switch to UTC and be done with the current mess already.
Or the 40K Imperial clock, that might be amusing...
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Germany (Score:2)
Which makes sense considering they're the ones who came up [youtube.com] with the whole thing.
News Flash (Score:5, Insightful)
Daylight Saving Time does not "confound the world". It does, however, provide endless fodder for those who wake up every day looking for something about which to be outraged.
Ditch Standard Time (Score:5, Interesting)
I'd love to have an hour of daylight to get stuff done outside when i get home and not have to wait for the weekend!
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Oh yeah nothing stopping me besides the company I work for...
UTC (Score:2, Insightful)
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Better solution is to just schedule things like calls using UTC
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This creates far, far more problems then is solves. Wherever you go, you have to determine the geographic time frame of reference. Morning is.... 1100 hours and nightfall is 2300 hours. Without time zones, who determines the frame of reference for that specific location? I open a business, and so I check the longitude and decide that for where I am, I should open at 0421 hours. Do I round that down? Am I in some region where we can all coordinate and agree on a time frame of reference? Let's call it a "
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actually there are plenty of cultural and latitude based things that determine when a day starts, your use of calculation is laughable and so typically slashdot autist. I'd suggest you study local similar business instead about the matter.
Move central Europe to the wrong TZ? (Score:2)
So, the suggestion to use "summertime" all the time basically moves (Central) Europe into the East European timezone (UTC+2). Why? Why not leave it in its proper timezone (UTC+1)? Because the proles think "eternal summertime" means "eternal summer"?
Compromise (Score:3)
OK, 30 Minutes of DST all year and be done with it!
Popularity isn't the issue (Score:2)
How unpopular it is, is irrelevant. There are tons of things that are unpopular but still necessary, like taxes (Sorry US, but it's true).
The real question is whether there is a benefit to doing it. I have yet to read about one single actual tangible benefit to it. And no, the perception that you have "more daylight" doesn't count, because it's not true.
Meanwhile, the negatives are VERY large: Increased number of accidents due to fatigue. Health problems such as heart attacks caused by the shifts. Etc
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popularity not irrelevant when you're talking about something that requires the action of politicians. Your *reasons* are irrelevant, only popularity or lack of it matters.
EU Says: Millions agree with us...honestly (Score:2)
Well, did they actually ask them? I don't think so. Of course, being the EU, if they did ask people and got the answer they didn't want then they'd just keep asking them until they gave up and agreed so that they could get on with their lives.
I'm all for scrapping summertime, not keeping it permanently.
The world is what we make it (Score:2)
But, careful with that ax Eugene, once something's set into society, it's hard to change it, regardless how ridiculous it is.
Origin of DST (Score:2)
Originally, DST was politically conceived to address two anomalies.
1) Duh, Daylight was very short during standard working hours, more daylight more productivity.
2) Depression triggers - Change was good; more sunlight more vitamin D less moods swing
Half a century its social media fodder for change, albeit back to no-change.
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Since it's mostly automated it's weird that people would be so upset....but sure, if it actually serves no purpose anymore then get rid of it.
The weird thing is that this article recap doesn't mention why we're still using it, or what purpose it serves today.
Hopefully it's not a scenario where people that don't know anything are trying to tear down something they don't understand because it annoys them
I see two excuses used for not being DST year round.
1) Economic. Something to do with electricity usage and we're supposed to use less of it... etc... however, studies have shown the effect is actually very negligible.
2) Children waiting at bus stops in the dark. Change school/business hours so that people don't leave in the dark.
Switching between DST and not is hugely unpopular and it wouldn't really cause any harm to remove it.
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Switching between DST and not is hugely unpopular and it wouldn't really cause any harm to remove it.
Of course, you have to realize that people who object to moving the clock back and forth, have no experience what it is to actually go through an entire year on a fixed GMT offset. It could very well be that we decide to abandon DST, and then people realize this sucks even more.
Re:does it still serve a purpose in those areas? (Score:5, Insightful)
Winter time is actually the standard time. Summer time is the deviation from it. You're basically moving your country from its natural timezone to the timezone east of it. (Or, if you live in western Europe, from the timezone to the east to two timezones to the east.) So while summer time all year round sounds pleasant, it's not. Winter time all year round makes more sense.
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Indeed winter time is when noon means "Sun at highest peak".
However, most people who want to eliminate time changes are asking for year-round DST. That's because DST is already more than 6 months of the year and business opening and closing is more based on DST than it is "winter time". Yes, that is effectively moving "a time zone to the East" but unfortunately businesses all start an hour earlier than they historically did. Who here starts work at "9am"? When did your office last start at 9am? 8am has
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8 am?! I'm still trying to get the kids to school at that time. I start work at 9:30.
But I know there are people who want to start earlier. My wife gets out of bed before 7 in order to beat the traffic, and I've had colleagues who start at 8 or 7 even.
And that's my point really: if you need to start early, then start early. If you want to start late, then start late. Don't try to force one view on everybody by messing with what time means.
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Don't try to force one view on everybody by messing with what time means.
Either we force one view on everybody, or we all pick our own.
If you don't like the first, nobody's stopping you from setting your personal clocks to your own preferred offset.
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Wouldn't standard time year round improve the bus stop situation?
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